


watching the world through glass

by watergator



Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Anxiety, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-01
Updated: 2019-01-01
Packaged: 2019-10-02 11:36:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17263499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/watergator/pseuds/watergator
Summary: dan leaves for a bbc event without phil(loosely based off the time dan cried in his hotel room)





	watching the world through glass

It feels like he’s missing a limb; like an itch that doesn’t exist or a tingle or nerves that shouldn’t be there. He glances to his left briefly at the empty space beside him, almost as if it’d prove to his dumb brain that right now, Phil isn’t stood next to him like he usually is.  
  
He’s stood in some little room that’s full of radio dj’s and a couple of celebrities and artists mulling around with dulled conversations as Dan stands in the corner beside the table that’s spread with sweets and fruits and all things that Dan would have to remind Phil not to pig out on, but that’s just the problem – Phil isn’t here.  
  
Instead, Phil is back in London, probably tucked up in their bed, grossly hogging the middle of the mattress with the covers rucked up under his chin with a mountain of snotty tissues strewn across the floor and an movie playing softly to help him sleep. And instead of being tucked up with him, listening to the raspy breaths of his sickly boyfriend, Dan is stood here in the room with walls that are far too constricting and a ceiling he feels is about to crush him with voices that sound too loud in his head.  
  
He watches Nick across the room laugh loudly at something Lily Allen says to him, his head thrown back with a grin as she laughs along with him and Dan wishes he was not scared to go over and talk with them but it’s like a brick wall.  
  
A brick wall that’s confined him to this sad corner of the room as everyone else has fun without him.  
  
In fact, it’s more like a _glass_ wall, if anything; being able to watch it all happen makes his heart thump harder and heavier in his chest and his palms sweat where they’re balled up in little fists by his side.  
  
Someone else he recognises from the BBC walks past him with a short nod and a smile as they call out for someone else, stopping them from conversation and Dan watches.  
  
Words stay stuck in the very bottom of his stomach almost and his brain just, _can’t_ do it. He can’t open his lips and make his tongue work, or pick up his feet and find someone to talk to – someone to distract him. Because the person who’s best at that is still at home.  
  
Dan needs to do something with his hands, and he considers perhaps taking his phone out of his hands and pretend to text or maybe scroll through twitter but he feels as if that’d look rude, and right now he doesn’t need the added fear that people, admirable people, would look over to see him glued to his phone and deem him being anti-social.   
  
But standing silently by himself watching everyone carry on without him isn’t exactly sociable either.  
  
He wants to go home. He so desperately wants to run away and hop on the next train to London and crawl up the forty-seven steps just to cry to Phil about how awful today has been, but he really, really can’t. He hasn’t a choice, not really, and he has to be brave.   
  
He’d told Phil he’d be brave, he’d convinced him that he would be okay to go alone and even the idea of texting Phil something to indicate that he wasn’t was humiliating.  
  
Another person laughs and someone cheers and there must have been a joke because someone else laughs and Dan’s lungs seem to constrict inside himself with how awful it feels.  
  
How awful it feels to be stuck in your own head because you can’t say words or walk across a room because of your own insecurities and fears all because someone you trust the most is sick in bed and not by your side to brush up beside you when you feel just a little bit off.  
  
He wishes Phil was here, he curses the world for making Phil come down with a horrible bout of the flu with horrendous timing and he tries to imagine how much nicer it’d be with his favourite person here, and not stuck ill at home.  
  
Phil would have bugged him the whole train ride up here, instead of Dan sitting alone with headphones pushed into his ears, muttering a sorry to the annoyed looking man he gets a glare from when his leg bounces up and down.  
  
Phil would have raided the mini fridge in the hotel room and insisted on pizza tonight, but right now Dan’s stomach is empty and he’s not sure he’ll even have the energy to order food to his room tonight.  
  
Phil would have stood here with him behind this imaginary glass wall, watching everyone with him and brushed his fingers up against his until Dan smiled and thanked him with a soft smile. Phil would have understood every churning thought inside Dan’s bubbling head right now and Dan wouldn’t need to ask how he did. Dan would have curled up on him once they got back to their room and kissed him on the lips with a thank you and fell asleep with his head on his chest, listening to the steady beat of his heart.  
  
But Phil won’t do those things because he’s certain Phil will fall asleep tonight in the middle of the bed, happy to hog all the covers to himself as he falls asleep with Buffy still playing until the menu rolls back up again.  
  
Dan’s skin itches and he wants to scratch but instead he picks up a satsuma from the table and squeezes it in his hand. He wants to crush it and let it get all sticky in his hands but instead he digs blunt fingernails into the skin and begins to rip it away – it’s surprisingly therapeutic and maybe helps just a little, but then he sees someone stood across the room, someone famous he reckons glance over at him for a second, then look away back to their conversation and Dan feels rubbish all over again.   
  
He shifts on his feet, only because the bottom of his feet tingle with a strange numbness and he chews down on his lip because he doesn’t know what else to do. Dan stares down at the half peeled satsuma and blinks at it. He can feel the familiar burn of tears behind his eyes and he feels frustrated.  
  
He’s not going to cry. He doesn’t want to cry, he wants to suck it all in and go say hello to people and laugh at stupid jokes and eat his satsuma and not think about how Phil’s probably sleeping right now in their bed with the heating blasting and he just wants to disappear from this moment in time entirely.  
  
He finishes peeling the satsuma, and tosses the skin onto the table weakly, staring down at the fruit in his grasp. He’s not hungry, but he supposes that eating something’ll count as doing something, so he rips away a segment of the fruit and pops it into his mouth.  
  
He looks around the room as he chews down on the squishy fruit, flavour dull and stale.  
  
He swallows it down thickly and he doesn’t even want to eat the rest but he wills himself to do it anyways; something to make time go faster, he supposes.  
  
He’s not even sure how long he’s been stood there, slowly eating this sad fruit, being sad, feeling sad – but Nick comes back into frame of eyesight, jogging over to him with a cheery smile and a hand clasping on his shoulder.  
  
“Calling it a night, mate,” Nick smiles at him. Smiles at him like it’s nothing. “Feel free to mingle or head to bed. Been a bit of a long day, huh?” He laughs and Dan has to force one back with a nod.  
  
“Yeah,” he says weakly.  
  
He finally gets his body and brain to work once Nick has left the room and more people spill out, and Dan finds himself briskly walking past people, trying not to shove, but it’s like he’s finally been granted his freedom and he just wants to get back to his hotel room.  
  
He walks to short distance that it is to the hotel and uses shaky legs to guide him to his room. Once he has the door open he kicks it shut and stands in the middle of the dark room for a moment as his breathing hitches in his throat and –

He cries. He lets out a sob and crawls sadly to his bed, kicking off his shoes with two dull thuds as he picks up the covers and buries himself under them with a wet cry.  
  
Tears come in little hiccups as he pulls the covers up and over his head like a cocoon to protect him from everything that’s happened today. The bed he’s never once slept in feels too big for one person, and he wonders if Phil feels the same back home. He thinks about perhaps reaching for his phone from his back jeans pocket but instead he lets the tears fall and tries to calm his beating heart that kicks furiously against his chest. He closes his eyes and buries his nose against crisp, too-clean and unfamiliar linen sheets of the pillow he’ll have to sleep on for tonight, pretending it’s the same blue and green chequered one from home and lets the tears roll from his face and collect in damp, dark patches against the material and sniffs back another sob.  
  
When he opens his eyes again, he realises he must’ve fallen asleep, even if only for a short while; his eyes are sore and feel puffy and his face feels tacky with dried snot and tears across it. He wipes at his cheeks and nose with the back of his hand and sniffs. His head pounds with the empty space that the anxiety from hours ago once occupied. He rolls onto his back and stares up at the ceiling he doesn’t want to see and feels the sheets he doesn’t want under his body before there’s a faint buzz and he sits up and grabs his phone from his pocket. When he pulls it out, he sees the light lit up brightly with a text illuminating the screen. It brings a small smile to his lips.  
  
It reads a single text from him, ‘ _missing you_ ’ along with a sad faced emoji and even though it’s a simple two words and an upside down smiley face, it’s enough for Dan to feel a little more grounded. Enough to make him know that he’s not the only one missing his other half.  
  
He flops back down onto the bed, head hitting against the pillows and he clutches his phone to his chest, hoping those few words will bleed through the screen and into his heart to maybe make him feel a little better. And maybe it works; maybe they make their way through a glass screen, like the glass screen he stood behind from earlier, and into his skin and settle in deep beside where his heart is and spread through him like hot rain, because he smiles, as more tears creep their way down his face, and he knows he’s okay to cry, whether it be happy or sad – because right now he’s missing home, and his home is missing him.  
  
And tomorrow couldn’t come any sooner.    

**Author's Note:**

> come say hi on tumblr !! @watergator


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